


Unspoken

by Jeni182



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andreil, Coping, Growth, Healing, M/M, Personal Growth, Zine: Forget Me Not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeni182/pseuds/Jeni182
Summary: Andrew Minyard is not good with words. Betsy helps him find a way to say the things to Neil he wants to.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 20
Kudos: 307





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! I wrote this for the Forget Me Not Zine, and it's turned out to be one of my favorites! Hope you enjoy!

Andrew Minyard was not good with words.

Actually, scratch that. Andrew Minyard was _very_ good with words. Cutting remarks and biting insults and sarcastic responses. He was very good at all of those. It was the simpler words he had problems with.

Words like _love_ and _relationship_ and _trust_.

“Hey,” Neil said, knocking Andrew’s shoulder with his own. They were on the roof, as they usually were this time of night. “What are you thinking?”

_I’ll miss you when I graduate. I wish you could come with me. I don’t want to lose this._

Instead, Andrew took a long drag of his cigarette. Instead, Andrew shrugged too tight shoulders. Instead, Andrew wrapped a hand around the back of Neil’s neck and brought him in for a cigarette laced kiss. It was the only thing he knew how to say right now.

When he pulled back, Neil was grinning. “Is that what you were thinking?” Andrew shoved him back with a hand to his face and took another drag of his cigarette.

****

“I don’t know how to say words.”

Bee raised a brow at him. “No? I’d say you have a gift with words, Andrew. I’ve never heard someone describe things as succinctly and as to the point as you do.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Andrew shook his head. He didn’t even know how to say this to Bee. He sighed and rubbed his face. Played with the edge of an armband. Jiggled a leg. Bee watched him patiently, waiting for him to get his thoughts in order.

“I’m graduating soon.” Bee nodded. “Neil is not.” She nodded again. “I don’t know how to say words.”

“Ah,” Bee said, finally getting it. “You would like to express some things to Neil, but you don’t know how to put them into words. Is that it?”

Andrew gave a tight nod. He tried to show the words physically. He could feel them, when they were alone, and it was dark, and they were tangled together in sheets with warm breaths and gentle hands. He tried to say so much in those moments, because he couldn’t say it out loud.

A kiss behind Neil’s ear. _I want you_. A finger lightly trailing a scar. _You’re perfect_. A hand on a jaw, foreheads touching, breaths mingling. _I love you._

Was it enough?

“I’m worried,” Andrew told Bee. “For when I’m gone, and Neil is here. We’ll have to communicate via phone calls and skype and…” Bee waited patiently again. “I just want to be able to say it out loud when we’re not in the same place. I’m worried it’ll be different.” _I’m worried he won’t want me anymore._

“Hmmm,” Bee nodded and made a note of something. “Well, there are a lot of other ways for you to say things to him. I think Neil probably knows that speaking your emotions and feelings out loud is not something you claim to be proficient in. And I think he would understand that, even when you’ve left PSU. But let’s talk about some ways you can express what you’re feeling without having to put it into words.”

****

The next night, Andrew had a brand-new journal. The pages were empty. The paper smelled fresh.

He had no idea what he was doing.

This had been the least cringe worthy of Bee’s ideas. _‘Write it down Andrew. You can show him if you’d like, or you can toss it if you’d rather. There’s no pressure.’_

He didn’t see how this was any different from texting. He didn’t want to say any of the things he was thinking in a text either.

So, laying in his bunk on his stomach with his journal open in front of him, Andrew tried very hard to push aside the feeling of being a teenage girl and put a pen to the paper.

_I don’t know what I’m doing._

_What the fuck am I supposed to write._

_When is Neil supposed to be back?_

Andrew looked at his watch and sighed.

_Neil is supposed to be back in an hour. He’s on the court teaching stupid freshman how to put the ball into the goal because they’re all incompetent. I don’t know why he bothers. But I guess that’s just so Neil. He always says, ‘someone had to show me’ and I guess that’s true and he IS an idiot. But not like these idiots_.

Andrew tapped the pen on the paper and sighed.

_I wish he would come home._

Andrew read what he’d written and slammed the book shut before he could rip it out and tear it to pieces.

****

One weekend, when they were at Eden’s after a game, Andrew lost Neil.

He left to get more drinks and did not make it back to the table. After ten minutes, Andrew left the table to look for him. Roland hadn’t seen him. He wasn’t on the dance floor. He wasn’t in the bathroom. Andrew was very calmly losing his fucking mind.

_Where are you, where are you, where are you._

He found him finally, in the back room. He was sitting on the floor, back against the wall. His knees were pulled up and his head was buried in his arms. Andrew dropped to the floor next to him and pulled him into his chest.

“What the fuck happened? Where were you?” He felt Neil shudder, and Andrew rubbed the back of his neck, massaging the tension out. Neil looked up and the glow of blue eyes in the dimness made Andrew want to close his own.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry. There was…a guy. I don’t know who. He grabbed me and called me Wesninski and I don’t know. I just panicked. I ran back here. I didn’t want to lose it out there and have security throw me out.”

Andrew let out a low growl. “Where?”

“No, just. Don’t worry about it. He’s probably already gone. Can we just leave?” Neil nuzzled his face into Andrew’s neck and Andrew took a deep breath. He nodded, and they left.

That night, when they were in the bed in their room in Columbia, after he’d shown Neil how worried he’d been with his hands and his mouth, Andrew pulled out his journal. Neil was snoring softly next to him, and Andrew ran a hand through his hair. He was rewarded with a soft sigh.

He started writing.

_I love that noise. It means he feels safe here, with me. It means he trusts me to take care of him. I would kill that guy that grabbed him. I would kill anyone who made him feel like he had to hide. When I couldn’t find him tonight-_

Andrew had to stop to close his eyes and gather his thoughts. To think about how to say this, even to this piece of paper.

_-the feeling inside my chest was like a vice. It was squeezing and squeezing and all I could think about was Baltimore. Only it’s worse than Baltimore, because now I’ve had it and now I know what there is to lose. Everything._

****

On the day of Andrew’s graduation, Neil pulled him in for a hug. Andrew did not huff, and he did not pretend it was annoying like he might have done once. Instead he let his head fall into Neil’s neck and breathed in his scent of soap and sweat and Neil.

“I’m proud of you,” Neil said quietly to Andrew’s ear. Andrew did not respond. It was too much.

There was a party in the tower, for Andrew and Aaron and Nicky. There was booze and the Vixens were there and the music was terrible. Andrew didn’t mind so much. He stood with a cup of vodka and watched everyone around him have fun. Neil found him leaning against the wall and came close with a small smile on his lips. He moved until he was leaning against Andrew. Until they were chest to chest and thigh to thigh. He took Andrew’s cup from his hand and set it aside on a nearby table.

“Dance with me?”

“Never.”

Neil tilted his head back and laughed, and Andrew used the opportunity to run a hand up his neck, until it was wrapped loosely around it and his fingers were on Neil’s pulse point. Neil looked back at him and Andrew felt his pulse quicken. Or maybe that was Andrew’s own pulse. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

The next morning, when everyone was still in an alcohol induced sleep, Andrew wrote.

_I’m leaving in a week. I’m leaving for Denver and Neil will stay here. Aaron will go to Chicago and Nicky will go to Germany. I am equal parts amazed that we’ve all survived this long and discomfited that after keeping and eye on everyone, it won’t be my responsibility anymore. Neil, though. Neil will always be my responsibility. I still don’t know how to say words. I still don’t know how to tell him what I want to tell him. Maybe I don’t really need to, after all. No, I know I don’t need to. I know he knows. Because no one has ever been able to read me like he has. No one has been able to give me a look that says, ‘I know what you’re not saying, and I feel the same way.’ _

_I still wish I could say it._

****

The night before Andrew had to leave for Denver, they were at the Columbia house. They’d already moved out of the dorms. Already packed all of Andrew’s things. Already found Andrew an apartment.

Neil and Andrew sat outside on the back porch, cigarettes lit and coffee on the step next to them. The summer nights were warm now, bugs chirping and the air a heavy weight on their shoulders, blanketing them in nighttime stillness.

Neil was twitchy.

“Are you going to tell me what your problem is?” Andrew asked, because he couldn’t simply say ‘ _What’s wrong?’_

Neil shrugged. “You leave tomorrow is all. It’ll be a while before we can see each other. It’ll be weird, not having you here.”

Andrew took a long drag. Neil went silent. After a moment, Andrew blew the smoke out in a harsh breath and took up the journal he had sitting beside him. He saw Neil glance over, but he didn’t acknowledge him. Instead he wrote.

_It’ll be weird for me, too._

He passed it over to Neil, and Neil smiled a little. He plucked the pen out of Andrew’s hand and wrote back.

_I’ll miss you._

Instead of passing it back, he scooted closer to Andrew, moving the coffee out of the way. They sat thigh to thigh and Neil moved the journal so that each of them had half of it resting on their laps. Andrew took back the pen. And so, it went.

_I’ll miss you, too._

_Will we talk every day?_

_Every single day._

_Will you think of me when you’re in goal?_

_I will never not be thinking about you._

_Will you send me nudes?_

_Every chance I get._

Neil laughed, and Andrew’s lips twitched.

They both went quiet for a moment, and Andrew took another turn.

_I love you._

He heard Neil suck in a small breath and before he had time to wish he could take it back, Neil snatched the pen from his hand.

_I love you, too._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!  
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jtmann182)


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